Day 7 - St. Louis, MO - Part Three

St. Louis is my kind of city.

You can feel the baseball fever here. I've only felt this in two other places, Cooperstown and Boston.

But it is different here than in those places and I don't totally know how to describe it.

As we drive in, we see a billboard that proclaims Cardinal fans as "Baseball's Greatest Fans."

Jack, who is not a sports fan, asks about that statement. I share with him that St. Louis fans are known for their high baseball IQ like a Boston, New York, or Philly fan but that are known for being exceeding polite (Santa Claus would never good booed here, I'm looking at you Philly fan).

Anyway, these folks love their Cardinals. Maybe it is just the afterglow of an amazing World Series win.

And then I realize that you can't spell Cardinals without ALS and I remember why we are here.

We get to our hotel and The Kids are ready for drinks and some dinner.

It's the best dinner that we have on the Bucket Trip.

Meals may be my favorite time on the trip too. Because when my mom is sitting there, it's kind of like she isn't sick. Sure, she has trouble with drinking and eating and sometimes needs some help.

But most of the time it just feels normal.

Tonight, she made me laugh so hard.

She's been sucking down Cosmopolitans when we go out at night. But for whatever reason, her eyes were getting really big while she was sucking on the straw.

I had to start taking pictures.

The pictures made me laugh even harder.

I showed them to Jack and he started laughing at the pictures too.

"You are terrible! You are making fun of the dying cripple!" she says.

I start laughing even harder.

"LOOK AT YOUR EYES!!!" I say as I show her the picture.

I'm laughing so hard now it hurts.

I'm crying.

And for the first time on the Bucket Trip, it's because I'm happy.